Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

C >> Charlotte Mary Yonge >> Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

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Douglasdale, Ettrick Forest, and Jeddart, were thus made too terrible to
be held by the English; but Bruce himself was for a long time disabled
by a severe illness which gave slight hope of recovery. At Inverary, the
Earl of Buchan made an attack on him when he was still so weak as to be
obliged to be supported on horseback by a man on either side of him;
but he gained a complete victory, and followed it up by such a dreadful
devastation, that "the harrying of Buchan" was a proverb for half a
century. The oaks sunk deep in the mosses bear marks of fire on their
trunks, as if in memory of this destruction.

Another victory, a "right fair point of chivalry," was gained in
Galloway by Edward Bruce, who in one year, 1308, took thirteen
fortresses in that district. Robert might well say that "he was more
afraid of the bones of Edward I. than of the living Edward of
Caernarvon, and that it was easier to win a kingdom from the son than
half a foot of land from the father." Edward II. was always intending to
come to Scotland in person, and wasting time in preparations, spending
subsidies as fast as he collected them, and changing his governors. In
less than a year six different rulers were appointed, and, of course no
consistent course could be pursued by nobles following each other in
such quick succession.

At a lonely house near Lyme Water, Sir James Douglas captured the King's
sister's son, Thomas Randolph, and led him to Bruce.

"Nephew" said Bruce, "you have forgotten your allegiance."

"Have Done nothing of which I have been ashamed," returned Randolph.
"You blame me, but you deserve blame. If you choose to defy the King
of England, why not debate the matter like a true knight in a pitched
field?"

"That may be hereafter," replied Bruce, calmly; "but since thou art so
rude of speech, it is fitting thy proud words should be punished, till
thou learn my right and thy duty."

Whatever was, strictly speaking, Bruce's _right_, his nephew learnt
in captivity to respect it, gave in his adhesion to King Robert, was
created Earl of Moray, and became one of the firmest friends of
his throne. The world was beginning to afford the successful man
countenance, and the cunning Philippe le Bel wrote letters which were
to pass through England under the address of the Earl of Carrick, but,
within, bore the direction to King Robert of Scotland.

A vain march of Edward II into Scotland was revenged by a horrible
inroad of the Scots into Northumberland, up to the very gates of Durham.
On his return, Robert tried to surprise Berwick, but was prevented by
the barking of a dog, which awakened the garrison. He next besieged
Perth. After having discovered the shallowest part of the moat, he made
a feint of raising the siege, and, after an absence of eight days, made
a sudden night-attack, wading through the moat with the water up to his
neck, and a scaling-ladder in one hand, while with the other he felt his
way with his spear.

"What," cried a French knight, "shall we say of our lords, who live at
home in ease and jollity, when so brave a knight is here risking his
life to win a miserable hamlet?"

So saying, the Frenchman rushed after the King and his men, and the
town was taken before the garrison were well awake.

About the same time Douglas came upon Roxburgh, when the garrison were
enjoying the careless mirth of Shrovetide. Hiding their armor with dark
cloaks, Sir James and his men crept on all-fours through the brushwood
till they came to the very foot of the battlements, and could hear a
woman singing to her child that the Black Douglas should not touch it,
and the sentries saying to each other that yonder oxen were out late.
Planting their ladders, the Scots gained the summit of the tower,
killed the sentinels, and burst upon the revelry with shouts of
"Douglas! Douglas!" The governor, a gallant Burgundian knight, named
Fiennes, retreated into the keep, and held out till he was badly
wounded, and forced to surrender, when he was spared, and retreated
to die in England, while the castle was levelled to the ground by
Edward Bruce.

The destruction of these strongholds was matter of great joy to the
surrounding peasantry, who had been cruelly despoiled by the English
soldiers there stationed; and a farmer, named Binning, actually made an
attempt upon the great fortress of Linlithgow, which was well
garrisoned by the English. He had been required to furnish the troops
with hay, and this gave him the opportunity of placing eight strong
peasants well armed, lying hidden, in the wagon, by which he walked
himself, while it was driven by a stout countryman with an axe at his
belt, and another party were concealed close without the walls.

The drawbridge was lowered, and the portcullis raised to admit the
forage, when, at the moment that the wagon stood midway beneath the
arch, at a signal from the farmer, the driver with his axe cut asunder
the yoke, the horses started forward, and Binning, with a loud cry,
"Call all! call all!" drew the sword hidden under his carter's frock,
and killed the porter. The eight men leaped out from among the hay, and
were joined by their friends from the ambush without; the cart under
the doorway prevented the gates from being closed, and the pile of
hay caught the portcullis as it fell. The Englishmen, surprised and
discomfited, had no time to make head against the rustics, and were
slaughtered or made prisoners; the castle was given up to the King,
and Binning received the grant of an estate, and became a gentleman of
coat-armor, with a wagon argent on his shield, and the harnessed head of
a horse for a crest.

Jedburgh, Stirling, and Edinburgh, were the last castles still in the
hands of the invaders. The Castle of Edinburgh, aloft on the rock
frowning above the town, had been held by the English full twenty years,
and, when Randolph was sent to besiege it, was governed by a Gascon
knight named Piers Luband, a kinsman of Gaveston. In hatred and
suspicion of all connected with the minion, the English soldiers rose
against the foreigner, threw him into a dungeon, and, electing a fresh
captain, made oath to hold out to the last. The rock was believed to be
inaccessible, and a blockade appeared to be the only means of reducing
the garrison. This had already lasted six weeks, when a man named Frank,
coming secretly to Randolph, told him that his father had formerly been
governor, and that he, when a youth, had been in the habit of scrambling
down the south face of the rock, at night, to visit a young damsel who
lived in the Grass-market, and returning in the same manner; and he
undertook to guide a party by this perilous ascent into the very heart
of the castle.

Randolph caught at the proposal, desperate as it was, and, selecting
thirty men, chose an excessively dark night for the adventure. Frank
went the first, climbing up the face of the precipice with hands and
feet; then followed Sir Andrew Grey; thirdly, Randolph himself; and
then the rest of the party. The ascent was exceedingly difficult and
dangerous, especially in utter darkness and to men in full armor,
fearing to make the slightest noise. Coming to a projecting crag, close
under the wall, they rested to collect their breath, and listen. It
was the moment when the guards were going their rounds, and, to their
horror, they heard a soldier exclaim, as he threw a pebble down on them,
"Away! I see you well!" A few more stones, and every man of them might
have been hurled from the cliff by the soldiers merely rolling down
stones on them. They dared not more, and a few moments' silence proved
that the alarm had been merely a trick to startle the garrison--a jest
soon to turn to earnest.

When the guard had passed on, the brave Scots crept to the foot of the
wall, where it was only twelve feet high, and fixed the iron hook of
their rope-ladder to the top of it. Ere all had mounted, the clank
of their weapons had been heard, shouts of "Treason!" arose, and the
sentinels made a brave resistance; but it was too late, and, after some
hard fighting, the survivors of the garrison were forced to surrender.
Sir Piers Luband, on being released from his dungeon, offered his
services to King Robert, whereupon the English laid all the blame of
the loss of the castle upon him, declaring that he had betrayed them.
Randolph's seizure of Edinburgh was considered as the most daring of all
the many gallant exploits of the Scots.

Bruce forayed Cumberland, and threatened Berwick, so that the poor
Countess of Buchan was removed from thence to a more secure place of
captivity. He also pursued his enemies, the Macdougals of Lorn, up the
passes of Cruachan Ben, and even hunted them into the Isle of Man, where
he took Rushyn Castle, and conquered the whole island. In his absence,
Edward Bruce took Dundee, and besieged Stirling, until the governor,
Philip Mowbray, was reduced to such straits by famine, that he begged
for a truce, in which to go and inform the King of England of the state
of affairs, promising to surrender on the Midsummer Day of the following
year, if he were not relieved before that time. Edward Bruce granted
these terms, and allowed Mowbray to depart. Robert was displeased at
such a treaty, giving a full year to the enemy to collect their forces:
but his brother boldly answered, "Let Edward bring every man he has; we
will fight them--ay, and more too!" King Robert saw more danger than did
the reckless prince, but he resolved to abide by his brother's word,
though so lightly given. It was, in fact, a challenge to the decisive
battle, which was to determine whether Bruce or Plantagenet should reign
in Scotland.

Mowbray's appeal met with attention at court. Edward II. had newly
recovered from the loss of Gaveston, and hoped by some signal success
to redeem his credit with his subjects. He sent his cousin, the Earl
of Pembroke, who was well experienced in Scottish wars, to the North;
despatched writs to ninety-three Barons to meet him with their retainers
at Newcastle, three weeks after Easter, 1313; summoned all the Irish
chiefs under his obedience to come with Richard de Burgh, Earl of
Ulster; called in Gascon troops, placed a fleet under the charge of
John of Argyle, and took every measure for the supply of his army with
provisions, tents, and every other necessary. For once the activity and
spirit of his father seemed to have descended upon him, and, as the
summer of 1313 drew on, he set out with Queen Isabel, and their infant
son the Prince of Wales, to St. Alban's Abbey, where, amid prayers and
offerings for the success of his enterprise, he bade her farewell.

At Berwick he met his host, and, to his disappointment, found that four
of the disaffected earls, Lancaster, Warwick, Arundel, and Warrenne,
had absented themselves; but they had sent their vassals in full force.
Edward's troops, at the lowest computation, could not have been less
than 100,000, of whom 40,000 were mounted, and 3,000 of these were
knights and squires, both men and horses sheathed in plate-armor.

To meet this force, Bruce could only muster 40,000 men, poorly armed,
and few of them mounted, and those on small, rough mountain steeds,
utterly incapable of withstanding the shock of the huge Flemish chargers
ridden by the English knights. The fatal power of the English long-bow
was like wise well known to the Scots; but Bruce himself was a tried
captain, and the greater part of his followers had been long trained by
succession of fierce conflicts. They had many a wrong to revenge, and
they fought for home and hearth; stern, severe, savage, and resolute,
they were men to whom defeat would have brought far worse than
death--unlike the gay chivalry who had ridden from England as to a
summer excursion.

The army met in the Torwood, near Stirling, and were reviewed with
cheerfulness by King Robert. He resolved to compensate for the
inferiority of his cavalry by fighting on foot, and by abiding the
attack in a field called the New Park, which was so covered with trees
and brushwood, and broken by swamps, that the enemy's horse would lose
their advantage; and on the left, in the only open and level ground
near, he dug pits and trenches, and filled them with pointed stakes and
iron weapons called calthorps, so as to impede the possible charge of
the knights.

The little burn, or brook, of Bannock, running through rugged ground
covered with wood, protected his right, and the village of St. Ninian
was in front. He divided his little army into four parts: the first
under his brother Edward; the second under Douglas and young Walter,
High Steward of Scotland; the third under Randolph; and the fourth body,
the reserve, under his own command. The servants and baggage were placed
on an eminence in the rear, still called Gillies Hill.

By this time it was the 23d of June, and early on Sunday morning the
soldiers heard mass and confessed as dying men, then kept the vigil of
St. John by fasting on bread and water. Douglas and Sir Robert Keith
rode out to reconnoitre, and came back, reporting to the King that
the enemy were advancing in full force, with banners displayed and in
excellent array; but warily spreading a rumor among the Scots that they
were confused and disorderly.

In effect, Edward II. had hurried on so hastily and inconsiderately,
that his men and horses were spent and ill-fed when he arrived in the
neighborhood of Stirling. Two miles from thence, he sent 800 horsemen
with Sir Robert Clifford, with orders to outflank the Scottish army, and
throw themselves into the town. Concealed by the village of St. Ninian,
this body had nearly effected their object, when they were observed by
the keen eye of Bruce, who had directed his nephew to be on the watch
against this very manoeuvre. Riding up on his little pony to Randolph,
he upbraided him, saying, "Thoughtless man, you have lightly kept your
trust! A rose has fallen from your chaplet!"

Randolph at once hurried off with a small body of his best men to repair
his error; but presently his little party were seen so hotly pressed
by the English, that Douglas entreated to be allowed to hasten to his
rescue. "You shall not move," said the King. "Let Randolph free himself
as he may. I will not alter my order of battle, nor lose my vantage of
ground."

"My liege," cried Lord James, as the heavily-armed knights and horses
closed in on the few Scottish foot, "I cannot stand by and see Randolph
perish, when I can give him help! By your leave, I must go to his
succor!"

Robert sighed consent, and Douglas hastened off; but at that moment
he beheld the English troop in confusion, some horses rushing away
masterless, and the rest galloping off, while the Scots stood compactly
among their dead enemies.

"Halt!" then said Douglas, "they have won; we will not lessen their
glory by seeking to share it."

By this time the foremost English battalions, with the Earls of
Gloucester and Hereford, had come into the New Park, and were near
enough to see King Robert, with a gold crown on his helmet, riding on
his pony along the front of his lines. A relation of Hereford's, Sir
Henry Bohun, upon this sight, rode impetuously forward to make a sudden
attack on the leader, expecting to bear him down at once by the weight
of his war-horse.

Bruce swerved aside, so as to avoid the thrust of the lance, and at the
same moment, rising in his stirrups, with his battle-axe in hand, he
dealt a tremendous blow as Sir Henry was carried past; and such was the
force of his arm, that the knight dropped dead from his horse, with his
skull cleft nearly in two.

The Scottish chiefs, proud of their King's prowess, but terrified by the
peril he had run, entreated him to be more careful of his person; but he
only returned by a tranquil smile, as he looked at the blunted edge of.
his weapon, saying "he had spoilt his good battle-axe."

In revenge for this attack, the Scots pursued the English vanguard for
a short distance, but the King recalled them to their ranks, and made a
speech, calling on them all to be in arms by break of day, forbidding
any man to break his line for pursuit or plunder, and promising that the
heirs of such as might fall should receive their inheritance without the
accustomed feudal fine.

All night there was the usual scene; the smaller and more resolute army
watched and prayed, the larger revelled and slept. Edward, among his
favorites and courtiers, had hardly believed that there would "be
any battle, and had no notion of generalship, keeping his whole army
compressed together, so that their large numbers were encumbering
instead of being available. Five hundred horse were closely attached to
his person, with the Earl of Pembroke, Sir Ingeltram de Umfraville, and
Sir Giles de Argentine, the last a gallant knight of St. John. When he
rode forward in the morning, Edward was absolutely amazed at the
sight of the well-ordered lines of Scottish infantry, and turning to
Umfraville, asked if he really thought those Scots would fight. At that
moment Abbot Maurice, of Inchaffray, who had just been celebrating mass,
came barefooted before the array, holding up a crucifix, and raising his
hand in blessing, as all the army bent to the earth, with the prayers of
men willingly offering themselves.

"They kneel! they kneel!" cried Edward. "They are asking mercy."

"They are, my liege," said Umfraville, "but it is of God, not of us.
These men will win the day, or die upon the field."

"Be it so," said the King, and gave the word.

The Earls of Gloucester and Hereford rushed to the charge with loud
war-cries. Each Scot stood fast, blowing wild notes on the horn he wore
at his neck, and the close ranks of infantry stood like rocks against
the encounter of the mailed horse, their spears clattering against the
armor in the shock till the hills rang again. Randolph meanwhile led his
square steadily on, till it seemed swallowed up in the sea of English;
and Keith, with the five hundred horsemen of the Scots army, making a
sudden turn around Milton Bog, burst in flank upon the English archery,
ever the main strength of the army. The long-bow had won, and was again
to win, many a fair field; but at Bannockburn the manoeuvre of the
Scots was ruinous to the yeomanry, who had no weapons fit for a close
encounter with mounted men-at-arms, and were trodden down and utterly
dispersed.

The ground was hotly contested by the two armies; banners rose and fell,
and the whole field was slippery with blood, and strewn with fragments
of armor, shivers of lances and arrows, and rags of scarfs and pennons.
The English troops began to waver. "They fail! they fail!" was the
Scottish cry, and as they pressed on with double vehemence, there rose
a shout that another host was coming to their aid. It was only the
servants on the Gillies Hill, crowding down in the excitement of
watching the battle, but to the dispirited English they appeared a
formidable reinforcement of the enemy; and Robert Bruce, profiting by
the consternation thus occasioned, charged with his reserve, and decided
the fate of the day. His whole line advancing, the English array finally
broke, and began to disperse. Earl Gilbert of Gloucester made an attempt
to rally, and, mounted on a noble steed--a present from the King--rode
furiously against Edward Bruce; but his retainers hung back, and he
was borne down and slain before his armorial bearings were recognized.
Clifford and twenty-seven other Barons were slain among the pits, and
the rout became general. The Earl of Pembroke, taking the King's horse
by the bridle, turned him from the field, and his five hundred guards
went with him. Sir Giles de Argentine saw them safely out of the battle,
then, saying, "It is not my custom to fly!" he bade Edward farewell, and
turned back, crying, "An Argentine!" and was slain by Edward Bruce's
knights.

Douglas followed hotly on the King, with sixty horse, and on the way met
Sir Laurence Abernethy with twenty more, coming to join the English; but
finding how matters stood, the time-serving knight gladly proceeded to
hunt the fugitives, and they scarcely let Edward II. draw rein till he
had ridden sixty miles, even to Dunbar, whence he escaped by sea.

Bannockburn was the most total defeat which has ever befallen an English
army. Twenty-seven nobles were killed, twenty-two more and sixty knights
made prisoners, and the number of obscure soldiers slain, drowned in the
Forth, or killed by the peasantry, exceeds calculation. The camp was
taken, with an enormous booty in treasure, jewels, rich robes, fine
horses, herds of cattle, machines for the siege of towns, and, in short,
such an amount of baggage that the wagons for the transport were
numerous enough to extend in one line for sixty miles. Even the King's
signet was taken, and Edward was forced to cause another to be made to
supply its place. One prisoner was a Carmelite friar named Baston, whom
Edward of Caernarvon had brought with him to celebrate his victory in
verse; whereupon Robert imposed the same task by way of ransom; and the
poem, in long, rhyming Latin verses, is still extant.

The plunder was liberally shared among the Scottish army, and the
prisoners were treated with great courtesy and generosity. The slain
were reverently buried where they fell, except Lord Clifford and the
Earl of Gloucester, whose corpses were carried to St. Ninian's kirk, and
sent with all honor to England.

Bruce had not forgotten that the blood of the Clares ran in his own
veins, and that Gloucester had warned him of his danger at King Edward's
court: he not only lamented for the young Earl, but he released Ralph de
Monthermer, the stepfather of Earl Gilbert, and gave him the signet-ring
of Edward II. to bear home.

Gilbert was the last male of the stout old line of De Clares.
Gloucester, and his estates descended to his three sisters--Margaret,
the widow of Gaveston; Eleanor, the wife of Hugh le Despenser; and
Elizabeth, who shortly after married John de Burgh, Earl of Ulster.

The Earl of Hereford had taken refuge in Bothwell Castle, but was unable
to hold it out, and surrendered. He was exchanged for captives no less
precious to Robert Bruce than his well-earned crown. The wife, daughter,
and sister, who had been prisoners for eight years, were set free,
together with the Bishop of Glasgow, now blind, and the young Earl of
Mar. Marjory Bruce had grown from a child to a maiden in her English
prison, and she was soon betrothed to the young Walter, Steward of
Scotland; but it was enacted that, if she should remain without a
brother, the crown should descend to her uncle Edward.

That midsummer battle of Bannockburn undid all the work of Edward I.,
and made Scotland an independent kingdom for three hundred years longer.
Ill-government, a discontented nobility, and a feeble King, had brought
England so low, that the troops could not shake off their dejection,
and a hundred would flee before two or three Scottish soldiers.
Bruce ravaged the northern counties every summer, leaving famine and
pestilence behind him; but Edward II. had neither spirit nor resolution
to make war or peace. The mediation of the Pope and King of France
was ineffectual, and years of warfare passed on, impressing habits of
perpetual license and robbery upon the borderers of either nation.

CAMEO XXXIX.

THE KNIGHTS OF THE TEMPLE.
(1292-1316.)

_Kings of England_.
1272. Edward I.
1307. Edward II.

_King of Scotland_.
1306. Robert I.

_Kings of France_.
1285. Philippe IV.
1314. Louis X.

_Emperors of Germany_.
1292. Adolph.
1296. Albert I.
1308. Henry VII.
1314. Louis V.

_Popes_.
1296. Boniface VIII.
1303. Benedict XI.
1305. Clement V.

Crusades were over. The dream of Edward I. had been but a dream, and
self-interest and ambition directed the swords of Christian princes
against each other rather than against the common foe. The Western
Church was lapsing into a state of decay and corruption, from which she
was only partially to recover at the cost of disruption and disunion,
and the power which the mighty Popes of the twelfth century had gathered
into a head became, for that very cause, the tool of an unscrupulous
monarch.

The colony of Latins left in Palestine had proved a most unsuccessful
experiment; the climate enervated their constitutions; the _poulains_,
as those were called who were born in the East, had all the bad
qualities of degenerate races, and were the scorn, and derision of Arabs
and Europeans alike; nor could the defence have been kept up at all, had
it not been for the constant recruits from cooler climates. Adventurous
young men tried their swords in the East, banished men there sought to
recover their fame, the excommunicate strove to win pardon by his sword,
or the forgiven to expiate his past crime; and, besides these irregular
aids, the two military and monastic orders of Templars and Hospitallers
were constantly fed by supplies of young nobles trained to arms and
discipline in the numerous commanderies and preceptories scattered
throughout the West.